Marie Sevier, a tireless caregiver who not only raised 10 children but also founded several charities for the disadvantaged, died Sunday after a brief illness. She was 85.
A devout Catholic, Sevier was awarded the Benemeriti Papal Medal by Pope John Paul II in 1985.
Born Marie Lockner in 1924, she was raised on an Iowa farm before training as a nurse at the Mayo Clinic. She moved to Denver in 1948 and married Ted Sevier in 1950. She gave birth to 10 children over the next 14 years and raised them in a Park Hill home at East 22nd Avenue and Clermont Street.
As her children grew, Sevier became committed to the less fortunate, and started a food bank in the family’s garage, stocked primarily with day-old goods she gathered from area grocery stores. After two years in the garage, the food bank expanded into the Food Bank Coalition, which served more than 150,000 needy people each year.
She also volunteered for the Catholic Worker soup kitchen, gathering home-baked goods, salads and other foods from her fellow parishioners at Blessed Sacrament Church. She would prepare up to 45 gallons of soup in her kitchen each month and deliver it to the soup line, according to the Denver Catholic Register newspaper, which dubbed her “The Mother Teresa of Denver.”
She also founded Hospice of Peace, as well as the Stapleton Housing Storefront, which provided food, low-cost clothing and counseling for indigent citizens.
For her efforts, she received the Mile-Hi Sertoma Club’s Services to Mankind Award in 1980.
She is survived by her husband and daughters Patrice Halbach, Colette Souder, Anita Sevier, Loretta Sevier, Maura Burgess and Megan Fante; and sons Ted, Mark, Phil and Dan; 35 grandchildren; and five great-grandchildren.
Funeral services are today at 3 p.m. at St. Louis Parish, 3310 S. Sherman St., Englewood.
Inside. Paid obituaries are on Page 9B.
